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(01-06-2021, 09:36 PM)Roly Wrote: It depends on the climate you are in, Texas is a lot different than New Jersey. If they cool your basement while you are heating it not so good. In cold areas you cannot have the water heater in a cold garage as pipes will freeze. Also consider the water inlet temperature in winter may be in upper 30's. Will it recover enough to have a hot shower. Same applys to tankless.
Heat pump water heaters are not going to take over in cold climates for now. Roly
If you are fortunate enough to have a basement and your waterheater is in there it would partly take the place of your dehumidifier which is pulling moisture out of the air down there so again it's a win win deal.
The first hour rating on the gas is going to be quite a bit higher. Also with the hybrid it will switch over to elements during high load situations if you have it set to let it do that.
The plumber that does the commercial stuff takes out more tankeless than he puts in now. The water is so hard here that they don't last long even with yearly flushing. Also the flow for dishwashers doesn't matter. They don't use enough water to ever get hot water unless you run the sink tap. I'm not sure why they even run a hot water line to them since they have to heat their own water. Just run a cold line to it and not waste hot water that will never make it to it.
Here the price of gas and the extra fees they have added recently have made gas as costly to operate as electric. I would go all electric on this house if I redid everything but we can't get enough amps to the house. Our meter is over 500' from the transformer and we already have more voltage drop than I would like. Not to mention undersized wires as they don't care how hot their conductors get or how often they melt the covers on the connectors... Remember the elec company makes their own rules to follow.
What we need is something to cool our incoming water in the summer in this horrible place to live. Nix that its wonderful please keep coming here and raising our property values so we can cash out and leave... Our cold water in the summer here is around 80* sometimes warmer. Tiny water mains close to the surface and all easy to heat up sand here in crematoria.
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(01-06-2021, 07:37 PM)Robert Adams Wrote: 50 Gallon heat pump operating cost of $104 per year and a 50 gallon condensing water heater is $259.
The Heat pump costs $300 more than the condensing gas one. It won't be too long until both regular electric and gas waterheaters go away as the heatpump ones pay for themselves pretty quickly. They cool the area they are in as well as dehumidify, no exhaust pipe no make up air...
So I am using my furnace to put heat into the air (in the winter) and this thing then pulls it out to heat my water which means I have to run the furnace to heat the air...sounds like a vicious circle to me. Those numbers cannot be TCO....in the North you would HAVE to figure in the added cost to run the furnace and the wear and tear on it. Though you may get a benefit in the summer with it cooling the air and not having to run the AC as much, though then it is going to have to work MORE as there is less heat in the air to extract. I just don't see a condensing WH as anything but a boondoggle.
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(01-07-2021, 09:25 AM)vernonator Wrote: So I am using my furnace to put heat into the air (in the winter) and this thing then pulls it out to heat my water which means I have to run the furnace to heat the air...sounds like a vicious circle to me. Those numbers cannot be TCO....in the North you would HAVE to figure in the added cost to run the furnace and the wear and tear on it. Though you may get a benefit in the summer with it cooling the air and not having to run the AC as much, though then it is going to have to work MORE as there is less heat in the air to extract. I just don't see a condensing WH as anything but a boondoggle.
That is the way I see it also. As far as removing humidity that is fine in summer but in the winter we need to add humidity as the air is dry outside then when it is heated inside it gets even lower humidity. Roly
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(01-06-2021, 11:22 PM)Robert Adams Wrote: The plumber that does the commercial stuff takes out more tankeless than he puts in now. The water is so hard here that they don't last long even with yearly flushing.
This should not be correct. Both are sealed systems in that all of the water going in comes out, none is lost to evaporation. The hard water scale formation is less soluble as the temperature increase. The calcium carbonate will want to adhere to the hot surfaces. However, a lot of this will pass through. The tankless system requires cleaning, not just flushing. Every time you turn on the hot water in your house, you flush the heat exchanger. A low PH solution needs to be recirculated through the heat exchanger each year to dissolve the scale. The tankless systems have this capability built in.
A tank water heater is only set up for periodic draining so the hardware scale will build on the bottom of the tank where flame heats the tank. The hardwater scale will stick to the tank walls eventually causing a failure. A tank system is not set up for cleaning.
Unfortunately, most home owners do not maintain their water heaters.
-Most manufacturers of tank water heaters recommend draining once per month. (rarely happens)
-Most home owners do not have the necessary equipment or know how to acid clean their tankless system
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I don't want to jump in on what seems to be a rigorous debate, but it doesn't seem to me the HP WH would run enough to make much difference in the heating and/or cooling of a room. But I'm guessing...I have no experience whatsoever with one.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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01-07-2021, 01:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-07-2021, 01:03 PM by Admiral.)
Ha, ha, great thread discussion. So far, I've decided not to go with a heat pump, or a tankless!!
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(01-07-2021, 12:37 PM)fredhargis Wrote: I don't want to jump in on what seems to be a rigorous debate, but it doesn't seem to me the HP WH would run enough to make much difference in the heating and/or cooling of a room. But I'm guessing...I have no experience whatsoever with one.
It depends how much hot water a house uses per day and the duration of each use. If you use 1/2 gallons each day, the heat pump would be very efficient and not add a lot to the room temp. If you use 1,000 gallons per day then a heat pump will not work. If you use 1000 gallons in one long shower, then a tankless is the only real solution. There is no one best answer. I know I am talking extremes but there are no defined cut off points for each water heater type.
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(01-07-2021, 09:51 PM)aquaticjim Wrote: It depends how much hot water a house uses per day and the duration of each use. If you use 1/2 gallons each day, the heat pump would be very efficient and not add a lot to the room temp. If you use 1,000 gallons per day then a heat pump will not work. If you use 1000 gallons in one long shower, then a tankless is the only real solution. There is no one best answer. I know I am talking extremes but there are no defined cut off points for each water heater type.
As long as the Tankless is sized large enough. One of the biggest problems I find while inspecting houses is that the Tankless units can have a hard time keeping up with demand. I can try to fill a whirlpool tub with a sink or two running and I don't get much hot water without turning off other fixtures. They have their purpose but they aren't always the answer. Not to mention, they are prone to leaking and have higher repair costs.
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(01-08-2021, 09:17 AM)Snipe Hunter Wrote: As long as the Tankless is sized large enough. One of the biggest problems I find while inspecting houses is that the Tankless units can have a hard time keeping up with demand. I can try to fill a whirlpool tub with a sink or two running and I don't get much hot water without turning off other fixtures. They have their purpose but they aren't always the answer. Not to mention, they are prone to leaking and have higher repair costs.
A lot of that low flow is because the home owner still has an old mind set of the conventional tank water heaters. They will set the temperature to the maximum so they have enough hot water. The tankless system adjusts the flow rate through the heat exchanger to maintain the set point. No one ever takes a shower at 135 degrees but will set the temperature there. Reduce the set point to 115 and there will be plenty of hot water.
